To All The Boys I've Loved Before
by mcmachine
Summary: Based on the movie. At the start of her junior year in high school, April's entire life turns around when her biggest secrets come out. A small silver lining comes, in the form of a jock and her high school nemesis' ex-boyfriend.
1. Chapter 1

**_APRIL_**

My house was never quiet.

It's something that I had come to accept in the sixteen years that I had been under the roof. If it wasn't a little sister growing up, then it was my older sister with music or the television or my Dad, or something. There was just always something. You do get used to it. My room had become my little sanctuary, small and messy as it may have been, it was the only sense of privacy that I had away from the world and my family. I could get lost in a book, allow my daydreams to roam free, and be myself. Reading and writing were most of my time in here, the only place that I could drown in a book or clear out my heart with pen and paper.

"April!" Alice's high-pitched voice jerked me out of my current book, Eleanor & Park. I was rereading it, admittedly, relating a little too close to the main character even though I knew she was presented to be a misfit. But every time I still managed to get lost in it. "You said that you were gonna–"

"Just a minute, Allie. Let me finish this chapter," I murmured without looking up.

"Come on, April, it's time for dinner." This time it was my older sister, Libby, who drew me away from my focus. I looked up at her with a sigh falling past my lips, tucking my bookmark into my current spot and setting it down on the nightstand. "We need to set the table." Dishes clattered from our father's best efforts as if to emphasize the help that was needed down there.

Libby and Alice disappear from my bedroom door and I could hear their footsteps clatter down the stairs. I got up to follow them a moment later. The front door of the house opened up as I was halfway down the stairs and I twisted my neck to see who it was. Matthew. Our next door neighbor and much more officially, Libby's boyfriend. He was over all the time. We had been best friends growing up. Now, with him dating my sister, that wasn't entirely changed. Everything was just approached from a different angle.

"Matthew's here!" Alice annoyed loudly. He and Libby exchanged a polite kiss on the cheek.

"Hey, April," he gave me a high-five as he blew past me.

Following everyone else into the kitchen as Dad finished up the rest of our dinner, I helped Alice get the table and everything else set up. Dad wasn't the best cook in the world – he was great with the meat, of course, everyone in town knew that, but side dishes and the rest could be a struggle. Those were pretty important given that Libby had decided to be a vegetarian which meant that Matthew didn't eat meat around her, either, even though I knew he hadn't made the transition in his own time. Eventually, we all sat. Dad opposite from Alice, and Libby and Matthew across from me and Kimmie

"One second, I just about got this…" Seeing Dad struggle with things, Libby quickly swooped in to save the day, as usual. She had definitely stepped up to be the mother figure when our actual mom had died. It was a little worrisome to know she'd be gone soon.

"I can't believe we're not going to see her until Thanksgiving," Alice blurted out, voicing my thoughts.

"It's going to be Christmas actually, sweetheart, because England's too far to come back just for Thanksgiving," Dad answered with half a smile and half a grimace.

"Wait, are you kidding?" I butt in. "We're not going to see her till Christmas?" Holy crap.

"Let's look on the bright side–" he started. "Libby don't be taking the car every day so you can practice your driving." Oh, yeah. That. Not something that I was great at even if I had managed to somehow pass my test to get a license.

"Ugh, I forgot I have to ride with April now," Alice whined.

Matthew spoke up to my defense, thankfully. "I can give you a ride. I'm not disappearing." He smiled at me sweetly and our eyes lingered on one another's for a moment too long.

"What I'd miss?" Libby asked as she came back in with dinner.

"We were talking about how bad of a driver April is." Alice pointed at me with a big smirk. I made a face at her, the tip of my nose bunching up.

"Yeah, we were, but we were also talking about airplanes," Matthew chimed in. "Which speaking of… I have a surprise for you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope, reaching across the table to hand it to Libby. I watched as she began to open it. "Since you couldn't home for Thanksgiving, I thought that I would bring it to you." He explained. A beat passed. "It's a plane ticket! I'm coming to Scotland." He beamed. My dad let out a happy noise, clapping his hands together.

Libby stared at him for a moment, clearly not as pleased. "You already paid for this?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "I had a Google alert set for flights once you said you got the scholarship. I've been working all summer to be able to pay for it. Why?" He questioned, his brow furrowed.

There's a tense silence between all of us as Libby folded up the piece of paper and put it back in her pocket. It wasn't until Alice butt in about the food on her plate until some kind of activity could resume, Libby sitting back down to eat. Neither of them talks to one another during the duration of the meal – instead, Matthew talked to me and my Dad. Libby, Alice, and Kimmie all went back and forth once amongst each other, each party existing as if the other wasn't also sitting at the table. When dinner is open and both Libby and Matthew rush out of the house to talk, the tension finally is gone. Somewhat, at least.

Peering out the window once the kitchen had been cleaned, I can see the two of them fighting even if I can't tell what they're saying. Their body language was tense. It was clear where this was heading from the way that she had reacted. Libby didn't want him to come and visit her. That was an unexpected blow. Normally she told me everything. I had always been a little bit of a third wheel in their relationship – even on dates with them. Neither one of them had wanted to exclude me when it came to their relationship given that Matthew and I had been friends long before Libby had even acknowledged that he existed. He'd been my first boy friend.

We had road bikes around the neighborhood and scraped our knees together. Middle school, we had sat on the bleachers together during lunch when we avoided everyone else. He had changed a little since dating Libby, trying to be more like her and less like himself.

That was how my fifth and final letter had been written. I didn't want to date him – no, he was Libby's boyfriend and I wouldn't have gone a thing in the world to change that. He was a good guy, we all went to church together, and she deserved someone who was good and wholesome, just like her. She deserved someone nice. But knowing and acknowledging that didn't make the feelings go away. The only thing that helped me compartmentalize all of it was writing it out.

That, among the other letters, was my most private secret. I reread them occasionally whenever I needed to come to terms with things. Maybe it was dramatic, that at sixteen, there were five of them. Joseph from Bible camp, Jackson from seventh grade, Deluca from homecoming, Alex from chem lab and Matthew. All uniquely different times and boys.

"What are you doing?" Libby's voice prompted me to shove said letters under a stack of papers.

"Nothing," I answered, glancing up at her. "What's up?"

"Your room is a mess." She answered, plopping down onto my bed. It was the sigh that she wanted to talk about something. I abandon my letters and other items on the floor before joining her on the bed, crossing my legs and sitting behind her.

"Are you okay?" I questioned.

"Yeah," Libby tried to lie at first. "Well, I broke up with Matthew."

I blinked in surprise. "What? Why?"

"Before Mom died, she said I should never go to college with a boyfriend." Oh. That was a piece of advice that I had never gotten from Mom. Then again, we had never talked about boys together – never even thought too, really. Libby had just been at that stage where she started thinking about them when Mom had died. I hadn't reached it yet.

"But you love him." I pointed out the obvious.

"I know." A sigh.

"So… do you think you might change your mind?" There was a long silence after my words.

"No." Another pause. "So, Dad made me pack up the stuff that I'm not going to take to college and donate it to Goodwill. I think that you should do the same. April, I'm leaving tomorrow. You're going to be the biggest sister. You need to set a good example." She lectured me. Even if I hadn't had that much time with Mom in my life, I had plenty of it with Libby, and I knew her 'mom' look all too well. I had gotten it too many times.

"Can we go back to talking about how you're sad?" I pouted.

The morning of her leaving came far too quickly. None of us were really ready to say goodbye. She was the first in our family to go to college, only because she had worked her butt off and gotten a scholarship to do so, something that I was working to do myself. Dad was taking it especially hard. We all get out of the car at the airport and plenty of hugs are exchanged, multiple times.

"Did you have to pick the farthest away college? Who am I gonna eat lunch with?" I questioned.

"I think you should look at this as an opportunity to branch out." Of course, Libby had always been the most social one of us. It was easy for her to say that. She was beautiful and social.

"Nope." I shook my head.

"It's junior year. You never know what could happen." Libby reminded me.

"That's what I'm afraid of." I sighed out.

To my own credit, I do try and do what she said. That day when I come home, I clean up my room. There's plenty of stuff in there that could be donated that I just can't let go off, but I managed to fill a single box of items for Goodwill. That seemed like more than enough to be letting go of. Dad would take all of it to the donation center. I leave it by the stairs for him to drop off.

Even when my room is clean, though, I don't feel any more prepared to be the big sister of the house or to start my junior year of high school The school part wasn't so bad. I had always been among the top of my class, making straight A's even on the day where I didn't put in the most effort, but those were few and far between. English teachers in particular always seemed to adore me, even if career-wise, I was leaning more and more towards medicine as opposed to anything else. But making good grades and keeping up with my classmates was easy.

It was everything else about high school that was hard. I didn't have the natural charisma that Libby and the rest of my sisters seemed to have. All of them were popular and well-liked among their respective grades. I had always been the black sheep of the family in one way or another, more like Dad while the rest of the Kepners were more like Mom. Quiet and reserved, head down, I wanted to start off my junior year the way that I had started off every other year. Unnoticed.

The hallway was noisy as ever as I moved down it to my locker, shouts and squeals of people catching up over the summer. I spotted Matthew and hesitated, chewing at my lower lip as I forced myself to keep walking. It's only once I passed him that I turned around and gave him a small wave, a regretful afterthought.

"Ow!" A pained squeal occurred right as I stumbled into someone.

"Oh– oh god, Meredith, I'm so sorry!" I stuttered out as my eyes widened with panic.

"Watch where you're going, Kepner." She spat back at me.

"I'm so, so sorry," I repeated.

Meredith and I hadn't always hated each other. Well, I didn't hate her. But she definitely hated me. We had been good friends once in middle school before things like popularity and boys were important. Well, they still weren't important – but she didn't seem to share that opinion with me. As she had grown boobs and became popular, I had been cast off to the side, no longer important enough to bother being friends with.

"Cute shirt," she began. "Is it your brother's? Oh, wait. You are the brother."

I took a deep breath, minding my temper.

"Hey, at least she has sisters that like her." Lexie stepped in out of nowhere. Lexie was Meredith's half-sister and my best friend. Well, my only friend, technically. She was fun and quirky, more social than I was, but still incredibly smart.

"You know what, Lexie? Screw you." She spat out.

"Hey, babe – how are you?" Jackson interrupted, his arms wrapping around one another.

Oh, Jackson. One of the few letters that I had written a letter too and certainly too good of a person to be with her. Back when Meredith and I had been friends, there had been one fateful kiss between the two of us during spin the bottle. She had liked him back then and just about lost her mind. He was too good for her then and too good for her now, but I guess he didn't see it that way. There wasn't much to be done about it. Girls like her always got guys like him. Maybe that's why there were so many divorces nowadays.

His presence was enough to temper her and get out of there, fortunately. The bell rings which means I get to the only part of the school day that I can actually enjoy without too much thought behind it – the classroom. Calculus was first up, early in the morning, followed by physics and then the psychology elective that I had elected to take for the year. Lunch is where my hell breaks loose again.

Lexie was nowhere to be found in the cafeteria, which sent me running for the library. But even that couldn't be as much of a safe space for me, despite my love of books and writing. The second that I bite into an apple, glares send me running out of the room. Outside, then. At least it's not too hot today.

Matthew was sitting alone on the bleachers. I took a deep breath, staring at him for a moment. This moment would have happened for him either way. He was a senior, after all. Deciding impulsively, I began to approach him. We were friends before and we could still be friends after. It would be that and nothing more, of course. I wasn't going to just betray my sister like that.

"Hey, is this seat taken?" I asked, chewing my lower lip.

"By you." He replied with a smile. "Hey, we're still cool, right?" He questioned after I had sat down.

"Yeah," I nodded, resting my forearms on my knees. "I–I didn't know that she was going to do that. She usually tells me everything, especially about you guys. It was weird, out of the blue like that. I'm sorry." Rambles escaped from my lips before he had the chance to say much.

Matthew just smiled at me for a moment before offering one of his headphones to me. I scooted closer to him and let him place it in my ear. We didn't have the same taste in music anymore, but I don't mind listening to his stuff. I've never been picky about that kind of thing and admittedly, it was nice to be around him without having to feel like a third wheel anymore. I was sure that he didn't feel the same way, though.

The rest of the day comes and goes without being eventful, fortunately. No running into Meredith to make my life even more hellish than it already was from the rest of the high schoolers. It was the freckles or the glasses or the red hair – it didn't really matter what it was to most people, they always found something to pick on, one way or another. Even though my sisters seemed to share some of the same physical qualities as me and they all seemed to love them, with me, it seemed to be a flaw. I felt like I couldn't stop it.

Behind the wheel of what had been Libby's car, I wait for Kimmie and Alice to load into the backseat. Driving home now is a lot more stressful with all of the traffic in the parking lot but once they're in and buckled, I shifted the car in reverse and began to ease out.

Until there's a thud.

"Crap."

"Oh my god!" Alice blurted out. Laughter from the both of them followed.

Shamefully, I looked up into the rearview mirror to see who my victim was. Jackson was staring back at me. Great. This meant that Meredith would probably find out and it would just give her one more reason to try and make my life as hellish as possible. When he walked around to the driver's side, I rolled down my window and let out a sigh.

"Hi." He greeted like nothing had happened.

"Hi." Mine was practically a whine.

"You know, most people usually check behind them before they reverse. To avoid killing people. It's kind of a thing." There was a smile on his lips that made it friendly and teasing, yet I'm still tense, knuckles turning white as I gripped onto the wheel even in park.

I stared forward. "Yeah, well, I'm not completely comfortable behind the wheel."

"Clearly," Jackson chuckled. "Are you going to be good to make it home alright? You know, without hitting anyone else?"

"Yes. Yes, I am." I stated simply.

"Uh huh," he chuckled his tongue, leaning in closer and glancing at my sisters in the backyard. "Well, you two are in charge. Keep an eye on this one." He winked at me, far too friendly, before walking away. I rolled up the window and leaned back into the seat, letting out a sigh.

I make it home without hitting anyone else. The rest of the week is a little easier, no more parking lot incidents or Meredith incidents or anything else, for that matter. I fall back into my usual routine of keeping my head down as much as I can, only making myself known to teachers enough so they know that I'ms mart. I would need recommendation letters for college this year if I wanted to get out of here one day. After school was homework, and reading, and maybe some time spent with my sister.

We got out Saturday night marathon of Golden Girls. It was something that I remembered watching with Mom and I was sure that Libby remembered it, too. We had passed it down with Kimmie and Alice eagerly. But this was the first one where it was just three of us instead of all four (or five for the nights that Matthew had joined us), and it felt different. I was sure that they felt it, too.

We don't always talk a lot, depending on how the week has been, but there's one comment from Alice that sent my head spinning. "Don't you find it depressing it's Saturday night and you're having a golden girls marathon with your sisters?"

No, I didn't. I loved all of my sisters with my entire heart and that was the way that it was always going to be, I was sure. But I knew that she was thinking of the absence of Matthew and the fact that, well, I didn't seem to hang out with a whole lot of people that weren't either another Kepner or him. Even Lexie had more friends than I did and often was out and about with them, while I would curl up with a book for the night and have that be my companionship. But I wasn't lonely. I was comfortable with my lack of a social life.

What I was less comfortable with was gym class. There's where Lexie and I both wither, slowly jogging together.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?" To both our surprise, Jackson Avery had caught up with us.

"Uh, me?" I questioned.

"Yeah."

"Hey, Avery, I heard my sister dumped you for a college student. Is that true?" Lexie questioned. I blinked in surprise at the sudden information.

"I uh, I need to talk to April. Alone." He repeated, pointing at me.

Lexie stared at both of us for a minute. "Alright, well, if you need me I'm going to go hide in the nurse's office and avoid the rest of this running hell." She chuckled, stepping away from the both of us. "Feel free to join me once you're done with… whatever, April." She added to me. I nodded as she walked away.

"Uh, listen, I just wanted to say that I really appreciated it. But it's never going to happen." Jackson began.

"I'm sorry, what?" I questioned, my brows furrowing.

"Okay. From what I remember about that kiss, it was hot, y'know, for being seventh grade and all. And I think it's really cool that you think my eyes are like the ocean, but it's just…" As he continued speaking, my gaze glanced down at the piece of paper in his hand. It was the letter. My letter, to him. There was no way that he could have that. It was impossible.

Before I know it, my entire world disappears.

"Wake up!" A voice yelled in my face.

I blinked in surprise. I was on the ground. "What happened?" I muttered.

"You fainted. Are you okay?" I nodded my head slowly. "Come on, give me your hand. Both hands." I agree without thinking much about it and he pulled me to sit up. I rubbed the sore spot on the back of my head form the way that I collapsed and let out a sigh. Fainting wasn't a common thing for me. But then again, I had never had my entire life pulled out from beneath me so quickly. He probably didn't know the half of it, even if he was holding that letter in his hand. "You want some water or something?" Jackson continued to question me.

"No, I'm okay," I answered with a forced smile.

"You sure?" Jackson questioned.

Another nod was given as I pushed hair back out of my face, barely containing another sigh. As I looked around, though, another wave of panic came crashing over me. There was Matthew. He was staring right at me and as I glanced down at his hand, I could see that he had a letter of his own in my hand. There was no way that this was happening. Not only was Jackson reading my most personal thoughts, but so was Matthew. Oh no.

"Oh my god… oh my god." Before I can even think about what I'm doing or apologize for it, I take advantage of the fact that Jackson's kneeled down next to me. I turn toward him and grab his face, pressing my mouth onto mine. He fell onto his back in surprise and I moved with him, needing to keep up the rouse. Matthew couldn't know I felt anything for him.

"Hey! Hey, stop that!" Couch quickly began yelling. "Stop that!" I pulled away. "Kepner, two more laps!"

I can't bring myself to speak. certainly not how I wanted my first kiss to go, not at all, but at least it would keep Matthew confused. Once I'm back up on my feet, I take off running. But not around the track like the coach wanted. Instead, I head inside.

It took me no time at all to find my way into the girl's bathroom where I quickly hide in a stall. My heart was pounding inside of my chest, shaking me entirely. None of it was from being out of breath from running like it should have been under any other circumstance. My weight shifted side to side restlessly, trying to figure out what in the world I was supposed to do. There was no way that this could be happening. Not really. This had to be a nightmare. I pinched myself, hoping that I would suddenly wake up. But there's no avail, just a little bit of pain in my arm.

The bathroom door opened and I tensed, holding my breath. "Hey, April? You in there?" A male called out.

"No," I answered.

Glancing down at the noise, another letter was slid beneath the stall and my own handwriting looked up at me. Andrew Deluca. His address was beneath it and I took a deep breath, letting out a sigh. They were all out. How could I be lucky enough to only have two of them get out? This was a nightmare. Except for the part where it was an absolutely crappy reality.

Homecoming had been fun, sure. We had danced together and it had been great. It was one of the first times that I had been comfortable around another guy. But I'd barely spoken to him in years now.

"I didn't mean to barge in on you, but I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. And uh, I thought you might want that back. Seemed a little personal." Andrew spoke.

I bent over and picked it. "I wrote this years ago." I announced as I stepped out.

"Freshman homecoming. Yeah, I had fun that night too. But you know I'm gay, right?" He questioned. I blinked in surprise.

"Oh, of course." I lied. "Yeah, I did. I did."

I didn't.

Never had I been so eager to get home from school that day. I run up the stairs without a word to my dad or my sisters, hearing them chatter, but I'm focused entirely on one thing. I get down on my hands and my knees under the bed, looking for the box. Pulling out everything underneath the bed, it's not there. My secret, most prized possessions were not there. So they were all gone. Who had found it? Had it been in the Goodwill box? No. There was no way that it would have been there. I wouldn't have been that stupid or careless.

"April, you got some mail!" Dad called out.

Dragging myself downstairs, I recognize my handwriting again. This time, it was to Joseph. It was addressed to the camp – he didn't get it. So four out of five. It was only eighty percent the end of the world, not a hundred percent. That didn't make me feel any better.

How the heck was I supposed to go forward?

The doorbell rang and I fell back on my bed, ignoring it. But eventually, Dad's voice calls out.

"Matthew's here!"

Oh, no. No, no, no.

I do the first thing that I could think of, and perhaps the most stupid thing that I could think of. Pushing open my window, I quickly shimmy my body through the gap. There's homework to do and a ton of reasons why I shouldn't do this. Avoiding it wasn't going to make it go away. But I can't do it, not right now. My foot missteps on the roof and I roll to the edge of it, trying to catch myself. I grab onto the gutter with one hand for only a second, enough to slow my fall onto the ground.

Ow.

But I don't stop or slow down. Running to my bike, I quickly begin to get out of there as quickly as I could. Dad and my sisters would be confused but I could come up with an excuse latter when I got back. There's a little cafe down the block that I could spend some time in, enough to make sure that he was out of my house and I had an excuse once I got back there. When I reach it, I lean my bike up against the side and head in, ordering a Coke as I sat down at the counter. I should have brought homework, but I hadn't been thinking that far ahead in my hurry.

"Hey, Kepner."

Oh no. I don't respond even as the waitress comes over for his order, stiffening.

"So, whatcha doing here?" I asked, trying to be friendly.

"Just here to drink a shake." Jackson looked at me with a smile. "Actually, I stopped by your house to talk and your sister said that you might be here. Look, I just want to be super clear. I'm flattered, I am. But… Meredith and I just broke up, so…"

"Are you trying to reject me right now?" I interrupted.

"Well, it seems like it didn't really take the first time." Jackson shrugged.

"I'm not trying to date you." I shook my head.

He continued to stutter. At least I wasn't the one tripping over myself. "Yeah, but your mouth is saying something, but your mouth said something completely different."

"What?" I questioned with furrowed brows, shaking my head. "Here's the thing I don't actually like you. I just had to make it look like I liked you so somebody else wouldn't think I liked them." That was a reasonable enough explanation, right?

"Oh okay. Deal. Who? You gotta tell me who this mystery stud is otherwise I'm going to think you have a tattoo of my face on a mysterious place." Of course, it made sense that he would question that. But it didn't mean that I actually wanted him to question it.

"No." I shook my head.

"Should I just tell the rest of the school you wrote me a love letter?"

There was the dealbreaker.

"Fine. It's Matthew Taylor."

"Hold on, Taylor? Doesn't that guy date your sister?" Jackson asked. Everyone knew that. That was why I needed to avoid it even more. The humiliation would have been impossible to get over.

"Dated. Past tense. He actually got a letter too so you can see how awkward and complicated it's going to get if he thinks I like him." I explained.

"Hold on, stop. I'm not the only guy who got a letter?" His question resulted in a quick shake of my head. "Wow, you really think that you're special when you find out she wrote a love letter to you."

"Well, I wrote 5 letters so don't feel too special." Why did I tell him that?

"You wrote 5 love letters?" I nodded. "Damn Keps you're a player. Who else did you write letters to?"

"If I tell you will you leave me alone?" This time, I looked over at him. He smiled and nodded. "Andrew Deluca."

"He's gay," Jackson pointed out.

"You don't know that," I retorted. "Everyone knows that. Who else?"

"Joseph, from camp. My chem lab partner, Alex Karev. We went to homecoming together. I didn't realize that he was such a bad boy." That was probably the most embarrassing one of my selection.

To my relief, he let it go there.

Once he had finished the milkshake that he ordered and I had finished my shake, he offered to drive me home, throwing in a line about my bike outside. Yeah, I had a car, but that didn't mean that I had to drive it everywhere. It was a lot easier and a lot safer for me to just take that everywhere even if it was a little sweatier than I would have liked.

"What are you gonna say to Taylor?" Jackson asked as we pulled up to my house.

"Guess I'm gonna have to tell him the truth." Maybe.

"But what is the truth? Do you like him, do you not like him?"

I gave him a funny look. "Not your problem, Jackson."

Getting out of the car, I began to walk up to the door. I should thank him for taking me home but this entire situation was just too awkward to wrap my head around. The sound of his car door shutting surprised me and I fought off the urge to turn around and look at him again until he said my name to get his attention. I paused, turning around to face him again as he got closer to me.

"What if you didn't tell him?" Jackson asked.

"What?" I asked.

"What if we let people think that we were actually together? Just for a little while. And not just Taylor. I mean, everybody." He made the suggestion as if it was something completely normal. Yet it was absolutely insane. I blinked at him, struggling to find my voice for a minute.

"Why would you want that?" I asked.

"Well for starters, when Meredith heard that you kissed me, she went nuts. And if she thinks that you and I are a thing, maybe she'll want to get back together." There was some logic behind it. It had nothing to actually do with me, of course. I let out a breath, shaking my head in disapproval. Even if it would have been a good idea, it was still bad.

"Oh, so you wanna use me as a pawn?"

"Ah, well see you technically used me as your pawn first." I didn't say a word, my lips tightening together. "You don't have to give me an answer now. Just think about it, okay?"

"Don't hold your breath."

Without giving him another chance to try and convince me, I head inside my house and upstairs again, muttering an excuse to my dad about needing to meet up with someone for a group project. Though I should focus on homework the second that I get into my room again, I don't. Instead, I can't get Matthew out of my head.

My phone buzzed with missed calls from him that I can't bring myself to pick up. I knew that he had seen Jackson and I kiss, just like everyone else had, and there was a chance that he could have seen him bring me home, too. It would have been easy to make it look like we were dating. I can already hear it in my head, him talking about how great we would be together. I had wanted to hear those words from him once before he and Libby had dated. But now, it would have been a nightmare. The only thing that shut off his brain inside of my head was Jackson's imaginary voice.

I knew what I had to do.

The next day at school, I don't hesitate to find him. I knew that he was on the football team and they always practiced early in the morning. Among the identical uniforms and helmets, it took me a minute to spot him among the crowd of men. Once I do, my feet carry me across the ground quickly to approach him. I can see the surprise on his face as I do, a gentle knit between his brows as he stared me down.

"Let's do this," I announced firmly.

His eyebrows raised up at me and I gave a little nod of my head, trying to stay certain in my decision. Before I knew it, he grabbed my hips to pull me in and sealed his mouth over mine in a harm, firm kiss. This was drastically different than the hurried, impulsive one that I had thrown myself into before. This was a real kiss. A super real his with the entire football team and who knew who else watching. My cheeks flush with heat and color until he pulled away and I stared at him, truly dumbfounded for a long moment.

"I, uh, I'm gonna go to calculus." I stuttered out as I took a step back. "Bye. Have a good day."


	2. Chapter 2

"We need to establish rules."

That was perhaps the only thing that I knew to do in a situation like this. I had dove in headfirst, too much thinking and not enough at the same time. This seemed like something silly that would have happened in one of those Lifetime movies that I would have watched when I was in bed sick all day, not something that I would actually have to go through and experience for myself. I didn't date, period. So why would I start with fake dating? It didn't make any sense but none of this did, really. I had a secret that I needed to stay secret. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Rules?" Jackson scoffed. "It didn't take you long to kill the mood." He sat on top of the picnic table, towering above me even more as I sat on the bench, pen paused precarious over the paper of my red journal.

"I don't want you kissing me anymore." I declared firmly, writing it down swiftly before he could try to stop me. I looked up at him once it was written. His offended expression might have been amusing under other circumstances but for now, I was completely serious about it.

"What?" He questioned. "No one's going to believe we're a couple if I can't kiss you."

"I don't care." I frowned, twirling the pen in my hands. "I don't want you kissing me anymore."

"Why not?" More questions, just crawling beneath my skin.

A sigh escaped. "Well, I've never had a real boyfriend before and I don't want all of my firsts to be fake." It's not like it was a secret that I hadn't had one before. "I still want things in my life to be real even if this isn't going to be. So you're going to just have to deal with it. I'm not compromising on this." I would have to stand firm on something. This seemed like a solid thing to stick with.

"We're going to have to find something if you want people to believe us," he pointed out with his eyebrows raised his in his forehead. "So you better get to thinking if you really don't want me to kiss you. And you kissed me first, you realize that, right?"

"I'm aware." My lips tightened. "Fine. You can kiss my forehead or my hair or whatever, but not on the lips. Or an Eskimo kiss. Or put your hand in my back pocket." I listed off alternatives quickly.

"My hand in your back pocket?" He scoffed. "That's stupid."

"It's from Sixteen Candles." I frowned. "It's not stupid. That's a classic movie."

Jackson rolled his eyes. "I never watched it. It can't be that good."

"Fortunately whether or not you've seen it is not an indicator of the movie's quality." I quipped. "But I'll make sure that you see it. We'll watch it together." I wrote that down on the other side of the open journal page. "And obviously, we can never tell anyone that this is fake. That's just too embarrassing for either one of us to have to deal with it." My pen moved again to jot it down without waiting for him. "What other rules do we want?" I asked, looking up at him again.

"Well, obviously. The first rule of Fight Club." He chuckled. "You have to go to football games and parties with me. Wear my number, signs, whatever you want to do." He commented, folding his hands and leaning forward.

"Huh?" I questioned, moving past it. "Fine. Football games and parties. That's doable." Mostly.

"Fight Club. You've never seen Fight Club?" His focus was on the wrong thing. I sighed.

"Nope." I popped the syllable as I spoke.

"Okay, write that down." His finger wagged at my current list. "With the Candles thing. We'll do a double feature because there's no way that you can go through life without seeing Fight Club at least once." Shaking my head and dropping it to hide the smile that was threatening my features, I made a note of it right below the other movie name. I could let him have that.

Staring down at the list, I nodded in slight approval. "What else? Is there anything else?"

"The ski trip." Oh, no. Oh no, no, no. "You have to go on the ski trip with me."

"That's not for months." I pointed out quickly as I looked at him, frown tugging at the corners of my lips. "Who's the say that we'll still be doing this by then? Besides, it's…" I didn't have a word for what I wanted to say. Everyone in school knew what the ski trip was. More people hooked up and lost their virginity than Homecoming week and Prom week combined. It was a school tradition and I don't know how the teachers and administrators pretended that they didn't know what was really going on every time that they went there. Of course, I had never actually gone.

"It's a tradition. We'll call it a contingency plan, just in case." Jackson didn't seem bothered by it. He was known as the type of guy who definitely didn't care about that thing. I knew that he and Meredith had done it before. The entire school knew that. "Just write it down, alright? It's no big deal." Only he would say that.

"Fine." I quipped. "But you have to drive me and my sisters to school," I suggested.

"Sure," he shrugged, more okay with it than I thought he would be. Pressing my lips together, I wrote it down. "I've got to get to practice, alright? I'll see you around." As per what we had written down, he bent over and kissed the top of my head before hopping off the table and heading toward the athletic track. I stood there for a moment, flushed and attempting to gather myself.

There was no way that I was going to be able to pull this off.

Lying was something that I had never been good at. I'd never been able to so much as fake sick when I was dreading something at school, even when anxiety about group presentations or public speaking was enough to actually make me feel nauseous. My dad and sisters were always capable of seeing right through whatever crap I tried to present. Even if the kids that I went to school with weren't the most insightful bunch, it was still doubtful that I would be able to get away with something like this. They knew about relationships. I didn't. That couldn't be said for a lot of things with the kids I went to school with, but this was one of them.

Tomorrow, the entire school would know and my social life as I knew it would change. My sisters would find out about it which would be… well, I wasn't sure what it was going to be like. They had always been nice about Matthew and Libby, but they had grown up knowing of Matthew their whole life given that he had been my friend first. Jackson was basically an outside entity, an unknown. That could either be a good thing or a very, very bad thing.

Even when the morning comes and I know that I can't avoid it any longer, I'm still not ready to face it. I can't decide if this would be a trial run or worse than the actual school finding out. Lexie was probably the only one who would talk to me about it directly and that was a speech that I had rehearsed fifty different times in fifty different ways. I still wasn't sure which one I was going to end up settling on. Other people would just talk, whisper about it. I had never been the buzz of gossip or a rumor before so it would be a new feeling.

"Kimmie! Alice! Come on! We're going to be late." I paced by the front door, waiting for them.

"Kimmie's running late," Alice sang in a tattling voice. Then she noticed that I wasn't holding onto any car keys. "Oh, no! We don't have to take the bus again, do we? I wish you would drive us, sissy."

Before Allie could continue, Kimmie rushed down the stairs. "I'm not late!" She yelled in protest.

"Almost," I clucked my tongue at her before opening the front door so the two of them could head out in front of me. Jackson honked his horn upon seeing us and I cringed. He was driving a convertible with the roof down. I was glad that my hair was in a modest braid though both Alice and Kimmie had their hair down. They were sure to love all the wind.

"Who's that?" Kimmie asked.

"That's our ride. C'mon, into the backseat, you two." I ushered them over, bracing myself for whatever chaos was about to occur on the short drive to the schools.

Both of them eagerly got into the back seat and I got in the passenger seat, pulling the seat forward so that Kimmie would have enough leg room. I clutched my backpack against my chest, not saying a word even after Jackson had greeted us. Fortunately, there's no awkward silence. My sisters were enough to keep that from happening.

"How do you know April?" Alice asked, leaning forward between our seats.

"I, uh," Jackson glanced over at me. "I'm her boyfriend." He answered simply.

"What?" Alice blurted out.

"No way!" Kimmie followed up.

I withheld a sigh. "Sit back, Allie, you know it's not safe to sit like that." I reminded her, glancing over my shoulder to make sure that they were both buckled up. Whatever I wanted to try and say to them about the situation just wouldn't come up, my mouth bone dry.

"So little Apes, what are your names?" Jackson questioned.

"You call her Apes? Awww, he has a nickname for you!" Kimmie cooed.

"I'm Alice!" The youngest Kepner quickly chirped in. "And this is Kimmie."

It's hard not to be grateful for the fact that it's a short drive to the elementary school and already on the way, then Kimmie's middle school is right across the street from the high school. I don't feel relieved though once they're out of the car and heading into the classroom because there's still an entire school full of people left to encounter. Not to mention that they were going to be more than happy to chatter about it once we were at home and with Dad around.

The parking lot is crowded as always and no one seems to notice that we get out of the car together. Most of the social scene was inside of the cafeteria before classes started. Which meant that was exactly where we were heading – it's where he was every day. He wouldn't change up routine because of something like this. If anything, the opposite.

Jackson's hand found my hip and kept me close to him as we walked inside of the school and into the cafeteria like it was the most natural thing in the world. I try not to be stiff, remembering that we're supposed to be in a relationship. There's no reason for me to be uncomfortable.

Except, there is.

Invisibility had been one of the easiest parts about high school. I could keep my head down and go about my business and no one else really cared. But now I can feel the eyes that are burning on me as I moved through the people with his arm wrapped around me. The scoff that Meredith released was loud enough for her to catch my eye for just a moment and I quickly looked forward again. There were a lot of things that I was ready for, and she was one of them. I was hoping that her inevitable outburst would mostly fall upon Jackson instead of myself. She was his ex, after all.

"I should head to class," I murmured, wetting my lips as I looked up at him.

"Wait for a second," he paused and reached into his back pocket before handing me a note. "Here. I'll see you later." Jackson bent down, kissing my forehead.

Flustered, I nodded like an idiot before turning on my heel to head out of there as quickly as possible, shoving the note into my jacket pocket. I don't get very far. A hand grabbed onto my arm and I let out a quiet yelp before realizing it was Lexie who was pulling me into the nearest empty classroom.

"You and Avery? Seriously?" She questioned. "Since when?"

"It's–uh, it's new." I stuttered, wetting my lips and fidgeting with the note in my pocket. "Really new."

"Obviously. And it's going to drive Meredith crazy." Lexie continued to speak and I nodded. "Which means that I absolutely love it and support it already. Good for you, Keps."

One prediction does come true, for better or for worse. No one else actually talked to me about it.

That doesn't mean that I miss the way that people stare at me during class and lean forward to whisper to their best friend, then suddenly their best friend is looking at me, too. Even when I catch them staring at me, few are embarrassed enough by it to actually stop what they were doing and look away. Some people just don't care. At least the teachers don't treat me any differently. It was making me want to turn into even more of a teacher's pet, and I knew that I was already too much of one for my own good.

My sisters love school too, even if they're not quite as nerdy as I am – maybe because they're younger and at the age where liking school isn't the geekiest thing in the world. By the time all four of us are gathered in the car again to head home, they're happy to tell Jackson about their day. He listens with interest, feigned or otherwise I'm not sure. He seemed to get along with them quite well, which was a relief. Even so, I get out of the car without saying much to him.

Before Alice and Kimmie have the chance to jump me with whatever questions they were unwilling to ask in front of Jackson, which had to be a short list given that neither of them was particularly shy, I run upstairs to my room and shut the door behind me, dropping my backpack on the ground. I have homework to do but I can't think about it. I can't think about anything but Jackson, and what we were doing. Was I really ready to go through with something like that? My phone buzzed with a text and I glance down, seeing Matthew's name on the screen and setting it down before I could even read what he had said. Oh, yeah. That's why I was doing this.

Friday night and I should be able to focus on something fun – read one of the books piled up on my nightstands or find a movie to watch with my sisters, but instead, I pull out my Calculus textbook. There's a quiz next week. It's not a high priority, but I need to focus on something that would actually require my thought, something that wouldn't let me get distracted. I get a moderate amount of studying in before distraction comes, the doorbell ringing.

"April!" Alice's loud voice shouted. "Your boyfriend is here!" Oh, no.

Hurrying down the stairs, both Alice and Kimmie were in the doorway and leaving Jackson trapped there. Dad was in the kitchen, certainly within earshot of everything that they were saying, even if he hadn't actually approached the situation. He was watching it like a hawk.

"What are you doing here?" I questioned, brows furrowing.

"Picking you up." Jackson shrugged. "I uh, wrote in the note. Shepherd's throwing a party tonight." Party. That was a part of the contract and my stomach turned at the thought, shaking my head before I could find my voice.

"I, uh, I can't tonight." Crap, I'd never read the note. I wet my lips. "I've got stuff to do and–"

"Go, have fun!" Dad finally chimed in with the worst possible timing and I barely managed to hide my kid. "Jackson Avery – man, I haven't seen you since you were this high. I heard you're playing on the football team, yeah? I haven't gotten to go out and see a game myself, but man, all of my customers love to talk about how good we've been doing this good." He spoke.

"Dad I don't think that's a good idea, I've really got to–" I tried to start and he cut me off again.

"Go. Have some fun, you've earned it. But don't wear those sweatpants." Dad chuckled with a broad smile, one of his signature ones. He meant it, he wasn't just being polite. Crap.

I forced a much less genuine one. "Alright, I'll be back down in a minute."

Dragging my feet back up the stairs, I can hear the typical little threat that my Dad had to give Jackson and I can't help but roll my eyes. There was no way that I was going to participate in alcohol or drug use. I wasn't sure if that was something that would actually happen, the drug part at least, but it was just about the last thing that he needed to worry about with me. Touching would be another no-go, not the kind that my Dad was thinking about, at least. I was a good kid. I wouldn't do anything that would have disappointed him.

Once I'm in the privacy of my room again, I scour through my closet to find something appropriate. I settle on a pair of black jeans and a pink floral blouse, buttoning it up and rolling the sleeves up to my elbow so it's a little more casual. My cross necklace dipped down my chest, hidden beneath the top button. This would have to do.

"You look nice," Jackson commented as I walked back downstairs, flats slapping each step.

"Good response," Dad chuckled, clapping him on the back of his shoulder. "Make sure you're home by curfew, okay? I know that I don't have to worry about you, but I have to say it anyway, otherwise, I would be failing as a parent."

"I know. We will." I smiled, giving him a quick side hug before moving beside Jackson. "See you later."

The drive to Shepherd's place is longer than the drive to school and it certainly feels that way without my two little sisters chattering in the back seat to fill the quiet. He has the radio on some kind of rock or pop station, I'm not sure, playing a Top 40s list. I wondered if he thought that was what I liked and that was why he had it on there, or if it was just music that he was really into. I didn't like too many popular songs. Too often it was sex or romance. I may have been a romantic at heart, but books always captured it better than music did.

"Alright, we're here…" he murmured as he pulled along the curb and put the convertible into park. We paused a moment as he put the roof up. The street was crowded with cars and I was almost sure that none of them belonged to parents, despite what he had told my Dad.

"How long are we going to stay for?" I questioned as we walked up to the front door.

Jackson shrugged. "I'm not sure. You're going to have to get used to this kind of thing." He opened up the front door for me and I stepped inside.

"Thanks," I murmured.

It was a huge house, much fancier than I expected. I knew that the Shepherds were rich but it was more than what I expected. No one was in the main foyer except for the two of us. I tightened the end of my braid for a moment, smoothing it out. Before I had the chance to stop him, Jackson reached toward me and tugged the hair tie out of my hair, pulling the braid loose.

"Hey!" I protested. "What was that for?"

"Your hair looks good down." Jackson shrugged. "I like it. It's a pretty color and you're hiding it." More like I didn't like being thought of as a Weasley. That insult had happened way too many times as a kid. I pouted and he snapped a picture of me on his phone.

"Okay," I breathed out, wetting my lips. "Are you sure this is a good idea? I don't know…"

"It's in the contract." He reminded me. "Give me your phone."

I stared at him skeptically. "Why?" I asked.

"Because…" He paused as he took a selfie of himself, smoldering handsomely at the camera. "This is going to be your new lock screen. This is what people that date do." Before I could ask, he showed me his phone – the picture that he had taken seconds ago. Subtle.

"Okay," I murmured, taking a deep breath.

"Let's go." Jackson took my hand and tugged me along into the spacious gaming room where everyone had gathered.

There was music playing and it wasn't as crowded as I thought it might be, though by no means was it intimate. I could see Meredith and Cristina sitting together on the couch, Derek and Mark huddled around the pool table and cackling at some comment that was made. Even if it wasn't complete chaos, it was still far from my scene and far from my comfort zone. Most things with him were.

Following him around blindly to the pool table, all of the guys around it greet me and I offer a timid smile though don't speak up for myself. They already knew that we were dating and seemed to accept that without question, though I knew it was going to be far from the case for everyone at this party. Meredith had influence. People liked to make her happy for reasons that I didn't understand given that she wasn't the most pleasant person in the world to be around. She was dark and a little twisted. The complete opposite of who I was. Maybe that was why Jackson thought this was going to be such a good idea.

"Hey, April!" Speak of the devil. "Come sit with us."

Plastering another fake smile on my mouth, I crossed the room to sit on the couch perpendicular to theirs, sitting up considerably straighter than either of them. Meredith looked supremely annoyed while Cristina had a hint of interest in her eyes.

"So, how long have you and Avery been happening?" She leaned forward, arm resting on crossed legs. "How long and how much? First base, second base?" Her eyebrows waggled as she spoke.

"Uh–" Before I had much of a chance to answer, Meredith interrupted.

"Oh, please. None of that has happened." Her eyes rolled as she looked over at her best friend.

"You don't know that." So, yeah, it was true. Maybe it didn't take a genius to figure that out but I didn't necessarily want people thinking that. Or the alternative, really. It was a hard line to walk.

"Yes, I do. I know Jackson and I know you." This time, her eyes narrowed in a glare at me. Before I had to come up with something to say, though, she stood up suddenly. "I'm going to go get a drink." She announced, looking between the two of us. "April, do you want something? Orange juice, a glass of milk?" She pouted mockingly as she looked at me.

"Actually, my boyfriend's bringing me something." I gave a tight-lipped smile as she walked away. Cristina followed.

For a brief moment, I have a relief of being able to sit there quietly. I shut my eyes and take a deep breath, basking in that brief glow. Parties were all about socializing and I, well, wasn't. I had always been much better at one on one interactions and communication with people than I had been in groups or crowded social settings. But a hand on my shoulder reminded me that closing my eyes wasn't going to make anyone actually go away.

"Here you go," Jackson handed me a plastic cup before swinging around the couch to sit next to me.

I took a small sip, scrunching up my nose at the taste of the beer. "Gross."

"Meredith giving you a hard time?" He questioned, glancing around the crowd as he pulled out his phone. People glanced over at us occasionally which was predictable. We were still new and I was supposed to be the last girl in the universe that someone like him would go for.

"A little bit, yeah." I shrugged my shoulders.

"C'mere," he murmured as he held his phone at arm's length.

Leaning into him, I gave the camera a soft smile as he took a selfie of the two of us together. My head turned and I leaned forward, just barely pressing my lips against his cheek as I listened for another shutter of the camera before I pulled away.

"Nice. That'll definitely be good for Instagram." Jackson commented as he opened up the app.

The night continues without another hitch from Meredith, who I excel at avoiding. He moved around the crowd to socialize a little bit more and I find myself hovering around the snack table, not wanting to draw too much attention to myself. We had already been seen here together and close with one another. Faking it with him didn't mean that I needed to get too deep into this crowd and see. That wasn't what I wanted.

"Are you ready to go? I was thinking we could grab a bite to eat."

Those were pretty much the best words Jackson could say to me tonight.

Nodding in my answer, a few goodbyes are exchanged as we hold hands and make our way out the door and to his car. Even if it hadn't been that terribly loud, the quiet night air and drive is appreciated. He headed toward the diner by my house, the one that we'd spoken about the letters at. I guess he had liked it more than I realized the first time.

Sitting down, the waitress put me in my usual booth. Against a wall, an outlet within reach. There had been days where I escaped from my house to come here and work on homework, and my laptop battery was pretty much on its last leg, so I didn't take it anywhere without a charger. It's different to be sitting there with him though, munching on french fries and drinking soda late on a Friday night. Admittedly, it's a little better than working on some calculus homework.

"You did good tonight. Mer's really mad." Jackson complimented. I think.

"Yeah, well, she might try and run me down at school on Monday," I commented with a shrug of my shoulders.

"I love that you're not afraid of her." He grinned.

I snorted. "Oh, no. I am."

"But you don't let her walk all over you, even when she's a complete bitch to you. Everyone else always does. I think it's cool that you don't let it get to you." He shrugged. "Like, that day at school when she made fun of your shirt. I think it's hot when girls wear plaid. I mean, Mer is hot, don't get me wrong. But that's it. You've got a good style."

My lips pressed together in a thin line. "Thank you." Another thing I'm not sure is a compliment.

"Can I get you anything else?" The waitress came by.

"Uh, no, we're good." I smiled. Jackson pulled out his wallet to pay and I stood up from the table, turning around only when he spoke again.

"God, she makes me so mad sometimes." He was staring down at his phone.

"Meredith still?" I questioned.

"Yeah. You know, tonight? She barely said a word to me. Didn't even look at me, really, while we're at the party. And now she blows up my phone as if it's no big deal the moment that we leave." Jackson complained, shaking of his head. He was obsessed with her.

I pressed my lips together. "Well, did you reply?"

"No." He shook his head. "I'll just call her later."

"You still call her?" I questioned, brows raising.

"Yeah," Jackson answered. I didn't reply for a moment, cheeks tightening as I tried to keep my expression from remaining neutral. "What? You've got this whole judge thing going on right now."

"Well," I sighed. "It's weird that you still talk to your ex-girlfriend on the phone. You're obsessed with her."

He leaned back, offended. "You've only had one boyfriend. And I'm not obsessed with her. What do you know?"

"Prove it." I sat down again. "Don't call her tonight."

"For someone who's quiet all the time, you sure have a lot to say." He scoffed.

"Well, people don't usually care to hear what I have to say. But I don't think anyone's ever been honest with you before." It's a ballsy statement for me.

"Well then fine," Jackson leaned forward. "Be honest with me. Why haven't you had a boyfriend?"

I fall quiet for a moment. "I don't know. Guys find me annoying." I knew that to be a fact. "It's just one of those things, okay? I'm a virgin and I want to stay that way because it's what I believe in and people don't like that about me. People don't even need me to tell them to know that. I don't talk about it, okay? I want my first time to be special and I know that guys find me annoying. I don't date. That doesn't make it something that we just talk about." I blurted out, words coming out way too fast.

"I like you." Jackson pointed out, his brow furrowing.

"Well, this isn't real, so… it's different." I pointed out.

"Right." He stared at me for a long moment before getting up from the table. "Let's go." I sighed before getting up to follow him back to the car. It's not that late, we probably could have stayed out longer, but I could tell the comment had made him uncomfortable. I don't push it as he dropped me off, saying goodnight without saying much more.

It's hard to get it off my mind, even as I lay in bed that night. It didn't make sense for him to react that way. He knew that it was fake, I knew that it was fake. That was all there was too it.

Yet come Monday, things had returned to normal for us. It got easier with each day that passed as I ate lunch with him in the cafeteria and his friends started to accept me into the group. They're not my type of people but I know how to get along with them. They talk so much that I don't necessarily have to and treat me like one of their own. I notice Matthew staring at me constantly, as well as Meredith and Cristina, but there's only so much that could be done about that. Matthew does catch me taking the garbage out one day, leaving me with nowhere to go.

"I can't believe that you're dating Avery," Matthew commented, shaking his head as he looked down at me.

"Why? Is it so hard to believe someone might like me?" I snapped back at him.

"No. But he's– he's nothing like you. You're a good, innocent girl and he's a complete dick." He retorted, his arms folding in front of his chest and not budging from where he was standing.

"Well, maybe you don't know me that well." Without another word, I turned on my heel and walked away, leaving him standing there. That wasn't a conversation that I could have with him. Maybe he knew me and maybe he didn't. I didn't know how to be around him anymore and if he was going to be that aggressive with me… I didn't really want to be around him, either.

Things start to become so normal between me and Jackson that I almost forget the fact that we're not actually dating. Movie nights that were normally between our sisters, that were supposed to shrink from four to three, instead remain at four as Jackson joins us and cuddles with me on the couch no matter what movie plays on the screen. He got along so well with my sisters, it was crazy. They seemed to adore him. Dad liked him a lot, too. Given what part of him that they saw, well, I couldn't really be surprised. He could be a really good guy when he wanted to be. They only saw that from him.

It's not just him with my family, though. Supposedly, his mom was the one who insisted on bringing me over for dinner one night, but I think he wanted things to get even given all of the time that he spent around my family. From the way that he talked about his mom, he did love and adore her, even if she seemed to have a very different personality from my own. Not that I remembered that much of her. I'd still been in elementary school when she did.

"It's so nice to finally meet you, April," Catherine said as we sat down for dinner. "Jackson told me you have three sisters."

"Yeah." I nodded. "I have an older sister Libby, who's just starting college this year, and two younger siblings – Kimmie, and Alice. Kimmie's in middle school and Alice is in her last year of elementary, same as Malcolm." I glanced over at Jackson's brother as I spoke.

"Your mom must love having all girls. I'm stuck with these little demons," she laughed.

"Mom, I told you. April's mother passed away when she was little." I grimaced slightly as Jackson spoke, stabbing my fork into a piece of broccoli on my plate. It was always an awkward thing to have to address.

"I'm so sorry, April." Catherine apologized quickly.

"It's okay. She did love having girls," I gave a genuine smile. "Although she might have argued that we're still demons."

Fortunately, dinner between the four of us doesn't get any more awkward than that. Malcolm was much shyer than Jackson was and his mom made a lot of conversation, talking about school and other things. It was a normal conversation, a normal family. She was a loud personality, a dominant force in the room. I could pick up that much. Jackson and I offer to clean up dishes as she took Malcolm upstairs to get him ready for bed.

"I'm sorry what she said about your mom," Jackson commented as I loaded the dishwasher.

"It's okay," I shrugged. "You get used to it," I added, glancing over at him as I straightened up. "Is it weird to not have your dad around?" My mom had been brought up. This was just a natural flow of conversation.

"Yeah. But… you know, he left. It's different." Jackson shrugged. "I'm pissed. He left my mom when she was pregnant with Malcolm. How douchey is that?" He shook his head. "And yet… I don't know. At least he's not…"

"Dead," I stated bluntly.

"Sorry," he apologized.

"It's okay." I smiled slightly. "You can hate him and not want him dead. Or you can hate him and still want him to be there. It'd be easier on your entire family if he was, so…" It made sense to me. "It's nice to talk to someone who actually kind of gets it, actually. I know that it's not the same thing but it's better than not talking about it." It had always been hard to talk about with my sisters. They were young and I didn't want to upset them.

Things were really becoming more natural around him.

More genuine, too.

Days and weeks passed and I was becoming entirely too used to being around him. Meredith was constantly hovering around the corner and watching the two of us, whether it was silently glaring at me or throwing some kind of snide comment. The worst of it is when I hear the two of them talking without me around. They don't realize that I'm there, but I hear every word of it. She doesn't want me going on the ski trip. He's bragging about how much better he is than the college guy that he was dating. She doesn't seem to care that she's with someone else. This was all getting way too complicated.

"I think he's going to get back together with Meredith," I murmured to Lexie, standing in the hallway and leaning against my lockers. "I can feel it coming."

"You need to get your man back, babe. Don't let that skank get him." She replied. I wish I had told her the truth.

Jackson struts down the hallway toward the two of us as if there was nothing weird or abnormal going on, and I held my breath. His arm looped around mine and I waved goodbye to Lexie as I moved along with him, seeing to drag my feet. Ever since I had overheard the conversation between him and Meredith, I can't get it out of my mind whenever he's around.

"What's wrong with you?" He questioned as we turned down an empty hallway.

"I think it's time for us to break up." I blurted out. "Things have could down with Matthew and he's not bugging me about the letter anymore, and Meredith is obviously super jealous. That's what we wanted. Now would be a good time for us to break up." There was no way to beat around the bush.

"What?" Jackson blurted out. "No, no. The ski trip is in a week. You can't break up with me before then. It's in the contract." He replied angrily, his brows forming a deep furrow.

"You can go with Meredith. I mean, you're practically kissing the ground that she walks on, talking about how you're just so much better than her current boyfriend." The words slipped out just a little too easily. "Look, Jackson… I don't think we thought this was going to go on for so long. But we got what we wanted out of this. Let's just call it."

"You're just trying to pull out because you're scared." He accused me.

"What do I have to be scared of?" I retorted.

The school bell rang. I folded my arms across my chest as I stared up at him, trying not to shy away.

"I don't know, April. You tell me." Jackson stared back at me.

I knew exactly what I was scared of, even if he didn't. The weeks that we had been together had been so natural that I had practically forgotten that we weren't actually in a relationship together. Holding hands, kissing each other on cheeks, the way that he rubbed his nose into my hair… all of it felt normal and natural. I'd lost that tension that I started out with, nearly completely forgotten. What we were doing no longer felt fake in the way that we gravitated around one another. The way that I talked to him and always went to him… it was because I wanted to, not just because we needed to keep up so imagine.

I liked him.

I had fallen for Jackson Avery.

Crap.

"I'll go if Lexie goes." Instead of anything on my mind, though, something completely different comes out. Lexie never went on the ski trip either and I knew that she wouldn't make an exception of that this year. This was my way out, perhaps the only one that I might get.

"Fine."


	3. Chapter 3

"So, why is your boyfriend bugging me about the skiing trip?" Lexie asked. "I never go."

A sigh pushed through my nose as I tried to keep it quiet, knowing exactly what Lexie was interrogating me. Even if she and I were different in many ways, we were similar in the fact that neither one of us had ever gone on the ski trip before. Her not going was more out of rebellion whereas I just didn't want to be associated with anything that happened on the trip. Either way, the weekend was better spent with my nose buried in a book, not messing around.

"I told him I would go only if you go." My shoulders lifted and fell in a tiny shrug. "The ski trip isn't my thing and it isn't your thing." Now wasn't the time to mention my attempt to break up with him. Maybe in the privacy of my bedroom, but certainly not on the living room couch.

"Meredith will be there." She pointed out with a raise of her eyebrows, leaning back against the arm of the sofa and folding hers in front of her ribcage. "She's going to be all over Jackson."

I shook my head. "I don't care. Let them."

"No way, Jackson is yours!" Lexie shook her head. "Oh, I'm so going for this."

"What?" I questioned. "You never go."

"Come on, April," she began emphatically. "I haven't seen you this happy with someone – well, I've never seen you this happy with someone, let's be honest," She laughed at my expense. "But seriously. You're smiling and making new friends without even being pushed. You've never done that before. It's not like you're suddenly becoming some popular bitch but you're actually coming out of your shell for once in your life. You're changing but it's a good thing."

"She's right, you know." I jumped when my dad's voice suddenly spoke up. I hadn't realized he was in the kitchen. Gosh, I was glad I hadn't said anything about the fight we had. I knew that he actually liked Jackson now. "I've always been worried about you being the quiet one at school. This is the first year I haven't had to worry."

Guilt rushed through me at his words and I knew he had no reason to realize just how bad those words made me feel. He didn't know that I had been living a lie with the relationship in the past few months and that I had made I even worse by actually falling for Jackson. This had gotten much more complicated than I had ever realized it would at the beginning. I didn't know how to get out now that I was in so deep, and the only reason that I wanted out was that I knew it wasn't reciprocated. We were supposed to just be using each other. I knew that he was using for me and that had been the plan from day one. Things just didn't feel like they had felt at day one anymore.

"Okay."

What else could I say? It wasn't like I could twist Lexie's arm into not going now.

I pack my bags begrudgingly. No swimsuit, no sexy lingerie, nothing that I was sure almost every other girl in the school must have been throwing in. My backpack contained my laptop and a couple of books to read through. It was officially sweater weather which meant that all I wanted to do was curl up inside with a book and a blanket. That was the only thing that I planned on doing there.

Waking up early for the trip, Dad was the one to drive me to school in the morning, tasked with dealing with the two youngest Kepners by himself this weekend. Nerves ate away at the pit of my stomach and I couldn't get rid of it. It wasn't the end of the world or a catastrophe, not the worst thing that had happened in my life, but my stomach doesn't seem like it was willing to get the message. It was going to make it a long bus ride. All I wanted was for this weekend to go by and figure out how to end things with Jackson without making anything even worse between us.

"Sweetheart?" Dad spoke up, pulling my attention away from my book.

"Yeah?" I questioned.

"Now, you know that I love you very much. And I trust you more than anything. You've always been the little girl that I haven't had to worry about," he started as he turned to me, the car in park. "You're also my smart girl. Please remember that this weekend. Please be smart about… whatever happens."

"D–Dad." My voice cracked as I spoke. "I–no. I'm smart. You know that and I don't want anything to happen so nothing's going to happen. I promise. We don't have to have this conversation." Fumbling for the car door, I opened it up.

"I love you, munchkin." He reminded me.

Shuddering to myself, I got out of the car quickly and grabbed my bag from the backseat to head over to the bus. Everyone was moving slowly this early in the morning, loading up the bottom with luggage. I hold onto my backpack for the resources of wonderful books inside of it. Something had to make the time pass.

Slowly stepping up onto the bus, my eyes scanned the groups and cliques that had already formed. Lexie was by herself in the back and looked like she had already managed to fall asleep. Jackson was sitting more in the middle of the bus, the seat next to him clearly empty. I knew what that meant, but I couldn't go with it. Taking a deep breath, I moved as quickly as I could down the aisle while dodging bags, avoiding looking at him.

"Hey!" So much for that. "I saved you a seat."

"I uh, I'm gonna go sit with Lexie," I mumbled.

"She was at a concert last night. She'll sleep through the entire ride." He countered, frowning.

"Then I better make sure she doesn't choke on her tongue." That made no sense. Not wanting to argue with him any further, I moved past him and plopped next to Lexie, slouching down in my seat and sighing.

I would have had to be completely oblivious to miss what happened next, and I'm not. Truthfully, even if I didn't want to admit it to anyone else, I was keeping an eye on him. Meredith haunted onto the bus a moment later. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but that smug little grin on her face and the way that she bent forward purposely to try to put her cleavage on display made it clear that she was flirting with him. Whatever she was saying apparently worked. She sat down next to him.

Chewing at the inside of my cheeks, I tried not to think about what they were talking about. They had a history together. I was sure there was plenty to talk about that didn't even involve whatever Mere was going to attempt to get up to this weekend. I can't shut my eyes and sleep, nor focus on any of the books I brought. It's only a couple hours, fortunately.

Everyone except for Lexie and me was in a huge rush to get off the bus once we arrived at the resort. It was huge and looked beautiful with the snow covering the ground around it, buried up in the mountains, but I can't find myself to get excited about it. The outdoors had never been a home for me and usually just an invitation to either end up covered in mosquito bites or sore from whatever slip and fall I took on an icy patch. This weekend would be like no other. Homework, reading, maybe some journalling. I was not going to fall into the shenanigans that everyone else did.

It was noisy as we made our way to the lobby. Meredith was already all over Jackson and I just wanted to hide away in a room, looking around for the seniors in charge of handing out keys. But what I find and overhear is just another nightmare waiting for me.

"Screw room assignments! Sleep with whoever you want." The keys were thrown up in the air.

Shaking my head, I quickly grab a pack of keys and get away from the scene of madness and horniness to find my way back to Lexie. She was staring down at her phone, earbuds in and oblivious to the rest of the world. I envied that.

"Here." I handed a key over to her.

"Nope." She popped the syllable. "I'm getting my own room away from you and Jackson."

"I'm not sharing a room with him." I glanced over my shoulder, pausing for a moment and overhearing him and Meredith talking about skiing. Something about a black diamond. I'd never even been on a pair of skis before. "It seems like he's already found a roommate," I grumbled.

"Dude, you've got to go and get your man," Lexie argued.

I shook my head. "I don't know how to ski. There's no way I'm going to go down a black diamond." Deluca approached us as we spoke. "I'm just going to stay in and enjoy the fire."

"You and me both," Deluca piped up.

"I have books and I brought face masks. I thought we would share." I looked at Lexie.

Lexie shook her head and Deluca spoke up. "If she's not going to do it, then I will."

That was how I ended up laying in bed with a cold face mask on my face and talking about how I felt about Jackson. I don't intend to tell Deluca or anyone else the truth, but something about it slipped out midst the fact that I had really developed feelings for him when I shouldn't have. There were other reasonable explanations for why I shouldn't have fallen for him – he was popular, well-liked and hard to get, and I… was the exact opposite, really. The only reason that I was hard to get was that I was awkward around boys and that I tended to run in the other direction most of the time.

Head resting against the headboard, I peeled the mask off my face and dropped it into the trash can between us, sighing. My eyes were wet and it had nothing to do with the aloe mask. I had broken my own heart in the last possible place that it should have happened. Coming here was only proof of that.

"He's so obsessed with Meredith and I'm just another one of those stupid girls who fell for Avery." What other explanation was there for me to come to? "It's embarrassing."

"Why do you think he doesn't like you?" Deluca countered. "Every guy gets a little bit obsessive at first, you know, once you... But okay, let's look at the facts. You just said all of that stuff was his idea. The fake dating, bringing you here. I may not know a lot about wooing women over but that doesn't sound like a guy who's uninterested to me." I looked over at him and caught his raised eyebrows, letting out a sigh. "He's probably waiting in the hot tub for you right now. That's what I would do. It'd be sexy."

"Do you really think that?" I questioned. "Waiting for me in the hot tub?"

"I'm not going to lie to you," Deluca shrugged. "But you won't find anything out sitting here."

He was right about that much.

Sighing, I swung my legs off the bed and stood up. My feet were quickly shoved inside of a pair of Ugg boots and I pulled on my puffy winter jacket over my nightgown. Bringing a swimsuit had crossed my mind while I was packing but I had decided it wasn't necessary. The jacket went down to my knees and my legs were going to be freezing. Hopefully, I wouldn't be out for long.

Dragging my feet down the hallway and through the lobby, it was much quieter than it had been earlier. It wasn't that late in the evening which meant if things were this quiet out here, people were probably up to no good in their rooms. There was a real possibility that could Jackson and Meredith.

Sighing to myself and shaking my head to attempt to get the thought of it, I pushed open the door and let the cold night air hit me, sending a shiver down my spine immediately. The hot tub wasn't far from the back of the resort. A little squinting to combat the darkness outside made it clear that the outline of a figure sitting in the hot tub was a familiar one, even with his back to me. So Jackson was there. For me or someone else, I couldn't confirm on my own, but Deluca had been right about one thing.

"You're alone?" I questioned.

Jackson looked up at me just enough to recognize my presence but didn't say anything, staring back down at the water that bubbled around him.

"Are you ignoring me?" I continued.

"Pretty sure that you started it." He remarked.

Lips pressing into a line, I walked around to the edge of the hot tub opposite of him, sitting down on it and twisting my upper body to face him. I couldn't avoid him forever, even if the relationship between us was supposed to be fake. We had to talk about it at some point.

"I'm sorry I'm not a good skier. You didn't even offer to teach me." I said.

"Oh, I'm supposed to be sweet to you but you ignore me on the bus ride up here?" Jackson countered.

"Shouldn't you be thanking me? You got to sit next to who you want to." I retorted.

"For someone who has such good grades, you can be an idiot sometimes." He snorted. My brow at him and I didn't say anything for a moment. "I wanted to sit next to you. I even packed snacks you like. I asked your sister about it and she yelled at me to make sure that I didn't get anything with peanuts in it so you wouldn't die." Oh. I wanted to know why he hadn't said anything. "So if I went out the way to do something you like…" He prompted.

"You must really like yogurt cover pretzels?" I half-smiled.

Jackson splashed some water at me with a shake off his head, but a hint of a smile was on his expression. I toed off my boots, turning toward him and sticking my feet into the warm water.

"I'm sorry that I didn't sit next to you on the bus." I apologized.

Sliding the coat off of my shoulders, I do something that I'm almost certain was the exact kind of thing my father had warned me not to do and the rest of my sisters would have laughed hysterically if they heard about. I lowered myself into the water, nightgown and all. It's warm and made up for just how cold it was outside, water boiling around me.

"You're getting in in your nightgown…" Jackson observed as I moved closer to him.

"I didn't bring a swimsuit," I admitted with a small shrug of my shoulders.

"There's no one like you, Keps," Jackson said.

It's hard to tell which one of us made the first move. Large hands engulfed my smaller waist as he pulled me closer to him in the water and I drifted like it was the most natural thing in the world, as if being this close to him in a hot tub with my nightgown sticking to my skin was something that we did every night. His mouth descended on mine and I was gone.

Jackson was good at kissing. It didn't matter if I was new to that entire thing, I knew that he was good at kissing, a shiver running up my spine at the feel of his mouth against mine even though I should be nothing other than warm. My legs wrapped around his waist as I settled down onto his lap and his arms pulled me up against him, tighter than before. Following his lead was easy and natural. He made it easy. I wrapped my arms around his neck and anchored myself against him. Somehow, it seemed as if he was even warmer than the hot water surrounding us.

Something beneath me pressed against my lap. I knew what it was even if I had never felt something like this before. I couldn't tell if he was embarrassed, though the opportunity to ask about it arises as is mouth separated from mine and descended to the slope of my neck. I might have – but he sucked on a certain sensitive part and I gasped out, eyes rolling back in my head and forgetting about everything else.

"We– someone could see." It's the only thing I could manage after I'm sure there are marks on my neck.

"You're right." His nose nuzzled against my neck affectionately after speaking, lifting his head back up and placing one more kiss on my lips, sweeter than before. "Do you wanna go inside?" Jackson asked.

"Yeah," I nodded.

Inside to, or for what, I'm not exactly sure. Both of us got out of the hot tub and it was like jumping into an ice bath. Jackson handed me a towel and I quickly dried off what I could before sticking my feet back into my boots and pulling my jacket on. He only put on a robe, looking impossible handsome, as we headed back inside.

"Is this goodnight?" Jackson questioned as we stood in the hallway together.

"I guess it is…" I murmured, opening the door to my empty room. I stared at him for a long moment before I stepped inside. "Goodnight, Jackson."

"Night, Keps."

Shutting the door only lasted for a minute. I took a deep breath and opened it up. Jackson was still standing on the other side of it, a smile on his face as he realized what had I had done. "Did you forget something?"

I grabbed him by the bathrobe, pulling him in and kissing him hard.

The door shut behind the both of us and nothing else in the world mattered.

Losing my virginity was something that I had never thought a lot about or planned out in any particular scenario. I had always assumed that it would happen the way that both of my parents would have wanted it to happen for me, on the night after my wedding with the man that I loved and was meant to spend the rest of my life with. This wasn't that. It's a whirlwind of teenage romance, but it has one thing in common with what they would have wanted, it was with a man that I was very, very much in love with. That seemed like it was supposed to be the most important part of it, anyway. Nothing else seemed to matter. And it felt good. Really good.

Although he doesn't stay the entire night with me, after it was over, Jackson does take his time holding me and making sure that I'm okay and didn't regret a thing. He rubs my shoulders and my back, cuddling me for a while before we finally have a real kiss goodnight.

Waking up alone in my bed the next morning was a little sad, but I don't have any time to wallow in the feeling. Instead, I have to pack up my bag again and make sure that nothing was left behind to get to the bus with everyone else. Jackson included. This time, there was no way that I was going to ignore him again on the bus ride back home. Snacks or no snacks.

I beat him there, though, luggage loaded and getting on to grab a window seat. Looking around, as people spot me, they began to clap. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment and I quickly sat down, slouching to disappear.

"Hey." Jackson greeted with a smile when he found me, plopping down next to me.

"You didn't tell anyone about last night, did you?" I questioned quickly, biting my lip. "They clapped."

"No, no," he shook his head. "That's just how people act, you know?"

"Yeah, okay," I breathed out uncertainly, wetting my lips and choosing to believe him. He had probably gone back and fallen asleep in his own room quickly, anyway.

"Do you mind if I use you like a pillow? I'm tired." Jackson asked.

I shook my head and he shifted down before leaning into me, his head tilting over onto my shoulder and putting just a little bit of weight on me. I can't tell exactly when he falls asleep, but I weight a little while before I allow my head to fall over on top of his and fall asleep for the rest of the bus ride too.

At least we got one way of sleeping together even if it wasn't in bed together like I would have imagined. But it was close enough that I didn't mind settling on it. We wouldn't get something like that again in the immediate future – not with Dad hovering. I didn't know how his mom would have felt about it, but it didn't matter. Things would have to remain subtle once we were back at home again.

My limbs are stiff when we finally get there. Jackson got off first to help unload some of the luggage for other people and I followed off slower, watching him with a smile.

"I'm so glad that you came on this ski trip, April." Meredith's voice caused my heart to skip a beat.

"Oh," I breathed out uncertainly. "Uh, thanks, Meredith." I forced a smile on my lips.

"And you know, I just think it's really cool that you're so understanding of my friendship with Jackson." I blinked in surprise as she continued, not saying anything at first. "A lot of girls would be pretty weirded out by their boyfriend sleeping in someone else's room.. but you're so trusting. It's great."

What? He had gone to her room after?

I stared at her for what felt like an impossibly long moment as I tried to figure out what to say. What caught my attention was her finger twirling around a necklace around her neck. No, not any necklace. That was my necklace. I reached up to feel for my own before realizing it wasn't there. Trying to remember the last time that I had it was proving useless.

"Where did you get that necklace?" I asked defensively.

"Oh, this? Jackson gave it to me. It's super cute, isn't it?" Meredith smiled at me. There was something evil in her eyes. "Anyway, have a nice day." She walked off.

Rage boiled in my blood and I took a deep breath, my gaze returning over to Jackson. He had finished helping to unload the bus and rolled over my suitcase along with him. It was thoughtful. Nice. But I couldn't get what Meredith had just said to me out of my head and the fact that she was walking around, parading my necklace.

"You went to Meredith's room last night?" I blurted out before he could say anything else.

Jackson stared at me for a moment, stunned. "Uh, yeah, well, I…"

"And you gave her my necklace?" I continued my barrage. "Is this a joke to me? Is this… funny?"

"No, no." He shook his head. "No, you don't understand, April. This isn't a joke to me."

"No. This is over, Jackson, in every possible way." I grabbed my suitcase handle from him.

"April, just let me drive you home and explain, okay? It's complicated but I can explain it." He attempted, stepping toward me.

"No. No. I would rather drive myself home. I will walk home before I get in a car with you right now." I shook my head angrily, throwing my hands up before he can try and get closer to me. He doesn't try and I grab my stuff, quickly getting away from him.

By the time that I'm home, though, I don't feel angry. Instead, I'm just sad.

I had been right. I had wanted to think about Deluca was and Jackson had almost made me believe that maybe it was something real, but it hadn't been. I had fallen for him and instead, it had been nothing to him. Just a joke or an excuse to get in my pants or whatever was. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to collapse into my bed and wallow and forget about every stupid second that we had ever spent together. I couldn't believe that I was stupid enough to fall for something like that.

Pushing open the front door of my house, the atmosphere was completely different. Christmas music was playing on the stereo and garland had been wrapped around the staircase. I looked around, taking in all of the yearly decorations that had already been put out. The tree was up and decorated. I wasn't in the mood, but it was enough to make me smile.

"April!" Kimmie yelled.

"You're home!" Alice followed up a moment later, both of them tackling me with tight hugs.

"Hey, you two," I smiled down at them. "Did you guys do this all by yourselves?"

"Well, we had a little help…" Kimmie smiled up at me as she pulled away, though Alice stayed attached at my hip.

"Hey, little sister." Libby grinned as she appeared at the top of the stairs.

As goofy as it may have been, seeing my older sister standing at the top of the stairs was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes. I wanted to talk to someone and I knew my little sisters wouldn't understand. Even if she didn't know the half of the situation, it would have been better than anything else I could have asked at the moment. I smiled at her and abandoned my little sister for a hug from my one big sister. "I missed you so much." I murmured.

It was a surprise but it was the most welcome thing that I could think of that moment. It was a time to stop thinking about everything else that was going on in my life and remind myself that there were still good things around, that I had my family and that was all that really mattered. Kimmie and Alice had a long series of questions that they were all more than willing to throw at her.

Sugar cookies were made to be decorated and eaten, a batch of three dozen going in so there would be more than enough for all of us and a few extra for some of the messy decorating attempts that were sure to ensue. I wasn't much of an artist myself and let my sisters take over the bulk of it, watching them smile and chatter as if things hadn't changed between any of us, as if Libby hadn't been hundreds of miles away.

"So, are you going to invite Matthew over tonight?" Kimmie asked, nudging Libby.

"Uh, no." She decided quickly with a shake of her head. "How about we just do a girl's night? Just like old times." She suggested.

"Girl's night and Dad," Alice chimed in. "Too bad that means we can't invite Jackson."

"Jackson?" Libby questioned, looking up at me with raised eyebrows.

"I–" I had been hoping to talk to her about that in private so I could tell her everything that happened. I couldn't do that in front of Kimmie and Alice. They both adored him and I didn't want to ruin things completely for him. To my relief, the doorbell rang before I had to come up with a more diplomatic answer. "I should get that."

It was probably nothing at the door, I couldn't imagine who it would have been at this time of night given that Matthew probably wasn't bold enough to show up on his own free will if he knew that Libby was home, and Jackson wouldn't come over if he was in his right mind to see me right now. Reaching the front door, I take a deep breath before opening it up.

Of course, it was Jackson.

"Hey, we need to talk." He started.

I glanced over my shoulder. "Not here." I murmured, stepping outside and pulling the door shut behind me.

"Just so you know, nothing happened between me and Gen last night." He started to explain. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes out of habit even if at the moment, I didn't particularly care about respecting him. He clearly had none for me if he had really done that – slept with me, hung around for a few minutes, and then run back to her like it was nothing.

"You still went to her in the first place. After…" I couldn't bring myself to say it.

"Look, Gen and I dated for a long time. Those feelings aren't just gonna go away, we have a history." Jackson continued to try and justify it, and all I could do was shake my head, looking up for a moment as if to briefly pay for the patience to handle this.

"I don't want to be second best or fake best. I–"

"No, no. You don't get it. Last night was–" He interrupted me the first time, and I do the same.

"Last night was a mistake." I hadn't thought that at the moment. I'd been so blissful and looking back, all I seemed was stupid. The type of heroine in a romantic movie that everyone hated. "Physical stuff might not be a big deal to you, but it's a big deal to me," I explained, forcing my eyes to stay dry.

"Who says it's not a big deal to me?" Jackson raised his voice slightly.

"Says every single guy on the bus! Clapping and praising you like you're some kind of god, and you're just eating it up." I shook my head disapprovingly, taking a deep breath in my pause to not overreact. "Jackson, just leave," I begged.

"Keps, look, I–" This time, I don't interrupt him.

"She asked you to leave, buddy," Matthew spoke up out of nowhere. I glanced over at him, taking a deep breath. Of course, he would be the one to show up at a moment like this.

"Matthew, I'm fine. Just go back inside." I requested.

"No, it's alright." He said.

"No, no, no. Are you serious right now?" Jackson paused and stared at the both of us for a moment, dumbfounded as if somehow I had been the one to insult him, marvelous seafood blue eyes swelling with an emotion that not even I could decipher entirely. "Seriously? This isn't about Meredith and me. It's about you and Matthew! Are you kidding me? This is the reason you broke up with me? You're still in love with this wannabe?"

The front door of the house opened and I don't even notice. My gaze was trained on the ground in front of me.

Breaking up with him had nothing to do with being in love with Matthew and everything to do with being in love with Jackson. Matthew had been nothing more than a blip on my radar in the weeks that I had been together, existing only in the background and small waves as we passed each other on the streets, or small mentions brought up from Kimmie or Alice about something with him and Libby. I hadn't had feelings for him in a long time. Even then, those feelings had been nothing compared to the way that I had felt about Jackson. Or at least, the way that I had felt about Jackson before this afternoon.

"If April broke up with you, it's probably because she's coming to the life-altering revelation she's too good with you," Matthew yelled at Jackson.

"You're in love with Matthew?" Libby spoke up, drawing my attention to the front door and my sisters watching everything unfold.

"Libby, no!" I turned away from the boys and quickly ran up the steps of the porch tot ry and grab her and explain to her everything that was happening. But before I had a chance, the front door of the house had been slammed shut in my face with me on the other side of it.

Great. Just great.

Everyone was staring at me as I turned around and I sniffled, once more forcing the tears back. I didn't know how to explain this to Kimmie or Alice. Or Libby, for that matter. It had started because of Matthew but that had been a mistake, a different lifetime ago before I knew what was really out there in terms of feeling for someone. None of those boys had compared to everything that I had felt with Jackson when I shouldn't have felt it. maybe there really was something more to the idea of forbidden love.

That didn't matter anymore.

"Jackson, just go home!" I yelled at him, tears burning in my gaze.

"God, April, you were never second best," Jackson said, staring at me for a long moment before turning away and heading back toward his car.

My arms folded in front of my chest as I turned toward Matthew. He was staring at me with puppy dog eyes. I might have fallen for them once before, but this time, I don't. Instead, he just looked pathetic. But no one was as pathetic as I felt in the moment. I had screwed all of this up.

"I didn't know that she was home," Matthew explained.

"It was supposed to be a surprise," I replied. "A nice surprise." So much for that.

He stared at me a little longer before turning away and heading back toward the house. I shook my head, looking up at the sky. How could this happen to me? How could things fall apart so quickly?

The front door shut again and I turned around, realizing both my little sisters had headed in.

"Great."

A few long moments passed before I finally headed back inside. None of my sisters were waiting around for me. Libby was probably up in her room and I had no idea where Kimmie or Alice was. Probably somewhere with the cookies. At least the two of them hadn't completely had their night ruined. Just really, really confused.

Heading upstairs to my room, I stare at it for a moment, longing for change. It's a cliche that people always do something crazy after a breakup to change, cut or dye their hair, change their wardrobe, or something. I had never understood it until now. There was no way that I was cutting off my hair and dying it was too expensive, but I could do something to change my room. It was somewhat clean. Grabbing my trashcan, I do the most impulsive, dangerous thing that I could think of.

Sweeping my arm around the shelf of romance novels, I dump them in the trash.

Sitting down on my bed once that was done, I pull up my phone and delete every trace of Jackson was on it. The funny pictures that we had taken together, our text conversation. I removed him from Snapchat and made my account private on Instagram, blocking him so that he couldn't follow me any moment. That was a change.

It wasn't until my phone buzzed that the panic really sent in.

A text from Lexie appeared on the screen with a video attached. The text beneath it was asking if it was me. Squinting at the screen and tapping it open, it only took a few seconds to realize that it was me. Me, in my nightgown, in the hot tub with Jackson and clearly sitting on his lap, making out with him. Somebody in one of the rooms facing the hot tub had filmed the entire thing and posted it online.

So I did the only reasonable thing I could think of. I screamed.


	4. The End

A sex tape.

A god-damn sex tape.

My hands shook as I stared down at my phone for a few seconds longer before locking it so I no longer could see it, entire body giving a shudder. This couldn't possibly be happening to me. It wasn't the scene of me actually losing my virginity – no, that had been completely private, the door shut and locked as well as the curtains drawn. No one had been around to see that. This was just some steamy making out in the hot tub. Yet it was more than enough to tear apart my reputation and who I was. I was a nice person. Why would some record that?

 _Oh_.

Meredith.

The same caterwauling scratched at the back of my throat but I held it down this time, squeezing my eyes shut and taking a deep breath. I couldn't lose it. For the next two weeks, I would be stuck at home with my sisters, which means I needed to present like everything in my life was fine. Even if they had already seen part of the reason that was far from the actual truth.

I wasn't a slut. I'd had sex one time with a man that I thought genuinely loved and cared for me, but it turned out that he had just deceived me, even if he had tried to apologize. I wanted to hate him for it but I couldn't. Instead, my heart was still just as soft and mushy as it had been, even if it was hurt. I still liked him. I still loved him. That didn't go away just because he had hurt me and it certainly didn't go away just because this recording was out – that wasn't his fault, that was all Meredith. It made it even weirder that he had gone to her room after and I could only wonder what they had talked about. But I knew him well enough, I thought, to know that this was something he had nothing to do with. He wouldn't have done this to me.

Nerves ate away at the pit of my stomach and I could feel a wave of nausea threatening me. There was no way that I could try to ignore this, not for two whole weeks, not knowing that it would only get drastically worse by the time that I actually got back to school and had to deal with seeing Jackson, Meredith, and everyone else. Allowing it to fester was going to make it worse. I needed help. Not the kind of help that Jackson or Lexie could have given me. I needed real hope. I needed my big sister.

Begrudgingly clutching my phone against my chest, I swung my legs off the bed and dragged my feet down the hallway toward her room which was no longer empty. There was music playing quietly. I lifted up my hand and knocked on the door, waiting for it to open. A few seconds passed before it did.

"Hi," I breathed out pitifully. "I need your help."

Libby stared at me for a long moment and I almost expected her to close the door on me again, waiting tersely before she stepped back and opened up her bedroom door wider to let me in. I stepped in and she shut the door behind me, immediately collapsing back onto her bed and staring at the ceiling. I knew I needed her help. But opening up about it was something else. I was going to have to tell her everything.

So I did.

Every painful detail of the story was recited out to Libby. I was unable to look at her as the truth spilled to of my lip in all of its brutal glory, glossy hazel hues staring at the ceiling even as the ceiling fan became a blur from the tears along my waterline instead of any actual movement from it. I didn't want to see the way that she was looking at me – with pity, probably. She had boyfriends before Matthew, she knew how to be around people and how to work with them, how to befriend them easily and naturally. I was the only Kepner that didn't have that natural charisma. Letting every part of it come out was a relief, in a way. It was no longer a shared secret between Jackson and I. Admitting it made it all that much more real.

Then I had to do the worst part of it, bringing up the ski trip. She had been to the same high school and dealt with the same things in a way, she knew exactly what it entailed. Unlocking my phone and handing it over to her so she could see the video, I finally removed my gaze from the ceiling and to my older sister's face so I could see her reaction to it.

"You made a sex tape and you're a virgin. Wow." Libby blurted out.

Okay, so I'd left out one detail.

"I don't know what I'm going to do about it." I exasperated, sitting up suddenly and folding my legs, hunched forward. "This is going to ruin my life. We're– we're not even together anymore and then this comes out. I know who did it and I know that it wasn't Jackson, but…" But I still had no clue how to go forward.

"We will get this taken down. I promise. I'll report and email Instagram right now. You're a minor. This has to break some kind of law." Libby said, keeping my phone in her hand as she grabbed her laptop.

"Thank you, Libby," I murmured sincerely as I looked over at her.

My older sister gave me a meaningful look as she took my hand and gave it a squeeze for a moment. I watched closely as she sent an email to Instagram that included my age and the fact that it had been both recorded and taken without my explicit consent or knowledge. I didn't know if that would make a difference, but it certainly should have. Otherwise, all I could really do was untag myself, as if that would really make any kind of difference in people seeing it. All it took was one or two popular people sharing it or liking it for everyone else to end up seeing it. That had already happened. Three days later, Instagram removed the video. But that didn't necessarily remove the damage that had already been done.

It was hard to know how many people had already seen it. There had been just over a hundred likes on the photo itself and I was obsessive enough to scroll through them and make sure that Jackson wasn't one of them. It was mostly Meredith and her friends, people trying to suck up to become one of her friends. I didn't know if that was better or worse.

"You're not off the hook yet, Ducky." Libby turned toward me with raised eyebrows.

"I'm sorry, Libby." What else was there to say? "I wish I'd told you sooner. I didn't mean to ignore you but I knew that I couldn't lie to you because I was already lying to everyone else and it was… it was making me completely crazy."

"It's okay." Her arm wrapped around me, rubbing my opposite arm gently. "I'm glad you told me. But never do something like this again, okay? You're better than that." I hoped that I was.

"Okay." I agreed softly.

"Are you guys friends again?" Alice's quiet voice peeped up and we both looked over, seeing her and Kimmie standing in the doorway, Kimmie's hand stacked on top of Alice's so they could both look through the slit that they had opened up without us noticing earlier. I wondered how long they had been there. Hopefully, they hadn't heard the parts that would have been inappropriate for their ages.

"We're always going to be friends, Alice," Libby answered and she motioned them both in the room. Kimmie and Alice jumped on either side of us on the bed. Alice was on my side, snuggling up against me as I wrapped my arm around her. "That's what sisters are. Friends for life."

"You guys are all my best friends." Kimmie chimed in.

"Mine too!" Alice yelled.

I let out a soft laugh. "You are all the most important people to me."

"Are you gonna be mad if we tell you a secret?" Kimmie asked, leaning forward around Libby to look at me.

"No," I answered.

"Well… we may have sent those letters." Kimmie said, pouting at me.

I stared at her for a long moment as the words replayed in my head. _We may have sent those letters_. They were eleven and seven. How did they even know how to send letters? My head jerked around to stare at Alice sitting next to me, who was now looking up at me with wide eyes. Oh god.

"You did what?" I blinked in surprise as I tried to process it.

"Well I saw them sitting out and I was curious so I started reading them." Oh god. Alice's words made my head spin and I shook my head as I stood up away from them. "I thought it'd be like those romance books that you always talk about! You'd get to be the girl! The pretty one who all of them boys love!" Oh. The innocent words were just enough to tug my heart in a different direction, away from any anger. Of course, the two of them meant well. There was no way that they could have realized the impact that it would have had. "And we kinda wanted Matthew to stay around." She added, poking Libby's thigh.

"But we like Jackson even more!" Kimmie added as if she were trying to suck up to me.

"I can't believe you guys did that…" I said with a sigh following, shaking my head.

Libby stood up, grabbing one of my hands. "But you guys had the right intention in mind. You know that, and God knows that, and April and I know that. Right, April?" She looked at me pointedly, her eyebrows raising up.

"Of course I know that." I forced a smile. "You guys are sweethearts." Messy sweethearts.

"We love you, April!" Alice stood up and wrapped her arms around my waist. I patted her head and Kimmie quickly got up to do the exact same. I smiled down at both of them and ruffled their hair. I knew that they meant well. They always did. They were just a little too young to realize the full consequences of what they had done.

Christmas felt a little different around the house. Kimmie and Alice had both gotten attached to Jackson in the same way that they had to Matthew when he and Libby had been dating. But he doesn't make an effort to come around again, not now that he knew Libby was home. I was grateful for that. I could use a break from the messy boys in my life with everything else going on, and I certainly didn't want to hear whatever shaming comments he would have had about the video. I was sure that he had seen it given I was almost positive that everyone else in our high school had. There would have been too much judgment coming from him.

Even if it felt different for me, though, by outside appearances it was pretty much all the same. There was constant baking whether it was cookies or something a little more fun, always a fun movie playing on the television with all of us out of school for a little while, and well, Dad was still working his butt off. He always did to make sure that he could provide everything possible financially for us. It meant that Libby and I did a little more parenting than most girls our age did.

But the holiday break from school doesn't last forever even if it would have been nice. With snow on the ground and ice on the streets, I'm in no condition to be driving to school, let alone with both of my little sisters in the car. Fortunately, Libby's break between the semesters at university happened to be just a little longer than our breaks in high school. She was off for an entire month compared to the measly two weeks that we got. I'd never minded going back to school in the years past, I liked the routine and I liked learning, so dreading it? That was a new feeling. Finally, I understand how my sisters and pretty much every other student in my school felt this time of year. My life was an utter mess and it was the most normal I had ever been.

The school was rather empty on the outside given how cold it was outside and that no one wanted to be there. I knew before getting out of the car and waving goodbye to my older sister that the hallway would be bustling with people. Opening the door to get out of the freezing cold only confirmed exactly that.

Scanning the hallway, the only face that I wanted to see was Lexie. No one was paying enough attention to me to notice that I was there and I found the brunette quickly, rushing up to her so I wasn't vulnerable for long.

"You made a sex tape." Lexie blurted out. "I love it."

"Oh, no. No. Don't even." I shook my head as I wrapped my arm around hers. "I can't think about it."

"Well, New Years Eve party shenanigans very quickly went viral and knocked you away from the hot spot. Most people have probably already forgotten about it." Lexie shrugged.

"I hope you're right," I murmured.

We moved through the hallway together to get to our lockers. Things only seemed to get more progressively more crowded and it took me a moment to realize that they were gathered around my locker in particular. I took a deep breath, pausing slightly before Lexie tugged me along.

Pushing through the crowd to see what everyone was staring at, there was a piece of paper taped onto my locker. Blown up from a screenshot on someone's phone was a picture of Jackson and me in the hot tub, with a handwritten note attached to the bottom of it.

 _NOT SO INNOCENT KEPNER._

I felt like I was going to vomit.

Lexie stepped forward to grab it and tear it off of the locker, yelling something at the people gathered around it, something to tell them to go away or to shut up. I couldn't focus enough on my surroundings to actually here exactly what she was saying as I spun around on my heel and tried to get as far away from my locker and everyone else as quickly as I could. Without paying any attention to my surroundings, I nearly ran face first into the chest of the exact person that I was trying to avoid.

"Hey, April–" Jackson started. "Whoa, slow down."

"You didn't even say that it wasn't true?" I blurted out, shoving angrily at his chest despite the tears burning in my eyes. "You just let everyone think that we had sex in that hot tub when you knew that wasn't the truth?" My voice was too loud. "You must be happy the video leaked."

I didn't give him a chance to speak before I turned on my heel to keep walking, feeling a tear slip down my face. I can hear Lexie say something to him this time but I don't stop to try and stop her.

"Hey, everyone, listen up!" Jackson shouted and commandeered the attention of everyone in the hallway, including those who were still lingering around my graffitied locker. Even I stopped for a moment, looking over my shoulder to see what he would do. "Not that it's anyone's damn business, but nothing happened in the hot tub. So if I here anyone else talking April or that video, I'm going to kick all of your asses. Do you understand?"

A sigh passed through my lips as I started walking again. Jackson ran to catch up with me.

"Look, April, I'm so sorry about everything. If I knew who did this–" I cut him off there.

"Even I know who did it. You should." I pointed out harshly.

"Let me talk to her, okay? Please. Let me handle it." Jackson asked.

"No. No, don't. I'll handle it myself." I couldn't trust him to, really. Not anymore.

Given that Meredith wasn't in the hallway to see the handy work herself, that left only a few other places. The cafeteria showed no sign of her which meant it was time to check the bathrooms. When I finally find her in one fixing her mascara or eyeliner or something, I stormed up to her without any hesitation, fire in my veins fueling a moment of confidence.

"I know you posted that video," I announced fiercely.

"Nope, wasn't me," Meredith stated it as if it was completely oblivious, smacking her lips against each other and straightening up. She reached over to grab a paper towel from the dispenser without even looking at me. "But just so you know if you're gonna have sex in a public place, you've got to deal with a consequence." She shrugged as if the statement was absolute fact.

"You know, it's bad enough that a guy would do it, but the fact that a girl did it? That's despicable!" My voice raised louder than I expected it to. "I mean, I guess it's clear to see that you don't care about feminism or other women besides yourself." So that was a stretch.

"Like I said. I didn't do it." She shrugged her shoulders and tossed out the paper towel before she finally turned to look at me, her arms folding confidently in front of her ribs. "But I'm glad someone did though because finally everyone sees who you really are."

Evil. She was evil. "What are you talking about?" I questioned.

"People are never what they pretend to be. You are not as innocent as you pretend to be. It seemed as if she were happy to attack me from whatever perspective that she could manage to take. My eyebrows raised up in my eyebrow questioning her silently for a moment, trying to figure out what it was that she was going for. "You kissed a boy that I liked!" She whined.

"You guys were broken up." I pointed out the obvious.

"No, before." She shook her head. "You knew that I liked him and you kissed him anyway."

No way. "In middle school? It was Spin the Bottle, you psycho!"

"It wasn't nothing to me!" Meredith shouted before turning around and heading out of the bathroom.

I had always assumed that no one ever paid attention to me. I always thought no one was paying attention to what I was doing and that the only drama in my life was in my head, maybe in my house. It turned out I wasn't as invisible as I thought. Maybe I never had been. With brows furrowed, I carry myself through the day and try to keep my chin up as much as I can. Jackson's words did pay off. People seemed almost scared to look at me or notice that I wasn't in the room. It wasn't the exact effect that I wanted, but it was better than the alternative.

There was something else that I had to do. I had given explanations to my sisters, mostly. Deluca and Jackson both knew the truth about the letters that they had received. It was about time that Matthew got the truth, too. I needed fewer lies in my life, not more.

"So Libby's gone now?" Of course, I couldn't talk to Matthew with her home.

"Yeah, on Saturday," I answered with a nod. "Listen, I owe you an explanation for everything."

"I think that's fair," Matthew said.

"See… it's like me driving, you know? I can imagine myself doing it and it's fine, but then once I get behind the wheel, I completely freeze. I don't know what to do." It's a bad comparison and I can see it with the confusion in his face.

"Huh?" He questioned.

"Let me try again." I took a deep breath. No simile this time, just the truth. "You were the first boy that I ever liked. Everyone else was pretty much just a fantasy off of some short interaction, you know? But you… I knew you. I didn't know how I felt about you until you became Libby's boyfriend. But it was a child's crush, I think. That feeling faded away and it wasn't really true love." I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I looked up to him.

A part of him looked offended. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"I didn't really know until Jackson. Until I had something to compare it to." I confessed.

"Right, Jackson…" Matthew's eyes rolled when I brought him up.

"I'm sorry. What I felt for him was real and– I'm sorry." I didn't know what else to say. He looked annoyed but I wanted to be honest with him. I couldn't keep up the lies going forward. Maybe it was something that he would be able to appreciate when he was a little bit older and more mature.

"You don't need to apologize. I know where you're coming from," he spoke again. "It's kind of how it was with Libby and me." I had no idea what that meant, but I wasn't ready to question that. I had another one.

"Did you stop loving Libby when she broke up with you?" I asked.

Matthew shook his head. "Not at first, but it changed, eventually. The longer that she was gone, the more that I started to understood why." Maybe he would understand why I had done what I did one day, too. He just needed a little more time. He stared at me for a long moment. "Do you feel the same way about Jackson?"

"I know you don't like him," I half-smiled, half-grimaced. "But thanks for understanding."

"If you miss him, why don't you just tell him?" He asked.

"Because… if it wasn't real, then I didn't lose anyone. But if I say that it was real and he still doesn't want me…" I didn't know what to do if that was the case.

"Then at least you'll know the truth. You have to tell people how you feel when you feel it. You can't just sit up in your room and write love letters you're never gonna send. Look what a mess you made out of things this time." It's a double-edged sword, what he was saying. It sounded like he was trying to be genuine but there was just something in his tone that I didn't like.

"I know what I have to do."

Bottling everything up had ultimate been the source of all of my problems, hadn't it? If I had come clean about the way I had felt at the beginning, instead of letting things fester and get out of control in my head with fantasies and make believe, then none of these problems would have happened in the first place. But on the flip side, the way I felt for Jackson never really would have happened, either.

It was hard to regret the things that we had shared together. Even if it had been fake on a surface level, the things that shared between us, the conversations and the laughs and even some of the hand-holding… that had all been real. We had been together plenty of times without the views of other classmates or our families, and all of those moments had been real. I couldn't regret that. He had made my heart warm too many times for me to throw all of it out. We had both made mistakes. But they weren't mistakes that had to be permanent. This was something that could be fixed. I just had to be willing to go and do something about it instead of hiding away and write my feelings down.

Grabbing the keys to my car, I took a deep breath and headed out to it. Sticking the keys into the ignition and turning it on, the engine hummed. I took a deep breath, checking the mirrors, feeling my heart pound. But I put the car into reverse and back out of the driveway, making my way to the school. I knew where he would be at this time of day. Finishing up football practice.

Parking crookedly in a spot, I marched around the school and toward the back of the football field. I was a little later than I would have liked but there were still plenty of guys on the field, meandering after practice and putting up some of the equipment.

"Hey!" I shouted and waved my hand above my head to get his attention.

"Hey," Jackson replied simply.

"I have to tell you something," I announced, taking a deep breath.

"Okay." His eyebrows raised up.

Oh no. There went all of my confidence, evaporating entirely. "I drove here," I said instead.

"Really? Wow. That's uh, that's great. Congrats." He didn't look annoyed, surprised, more than anything else. He had a smile on his face, soft and relaxed as if there was nothing in the world to worry about. It was enough to make me relax for just a moment, to forget everything else in the world. He had a dazzling effect on me.

"Thanks." I'm too stunned to go on with what I wanted to say. The words are still there in the pit of my stomach, itchy and crawling their way up my throat, but I bite my tongue and don't let them out. I don't have the nerve while I'm staring out them. "Uh, bye." I blurted out suddenly, turning on my heel away from him and trying to bolt out of there as quickly as I could. I couldn't do it. He was way out of my league and I was crazy to think otherwise.

"Whoa, wait a minute. What's up?" Jackson questioned, stopping me in my path. I took a deep breath.

Turning around on my heel, I tried to face him. "Uh, nothing." I lied.

Jackson stared at me for a long moment and it was incredibly obvious that he didn't believe a word that was coming out of my mouth. Why would he? It was far from the truth and the both of us knew it. I wasn't capable of being subtle and I certainly was no less subtle. He was good at seeing through me. I didn't know if it had been there at the beginning or if it was something that had developed in the course of our relationship. Either way, it didn't matter. He knew that there was something much more than that on my mind.

So I had to speak the truth.

"I need you to know that I like you, Jackson Avery." The words were out there and there was officially no taking it back. I took another deep breath to try and calm my heart rate, practically capable of feeling it fluttering inside of my chest with the strength that it shook me. "And not in a fake way." I couldn't tell if that part was bigger or not. "That's all I needed to say."

At least I had been able to say it instead of burying it inside of me like I had so many other things or writing it in a letter to try and express and then forget about completely. This was the truth and it was public. Satisfied with my ability to finally open up with the truth, I put a small smile on my face for just a brief moment before turning around to try and walk away again now that the actual truth was out again. I had done it. This was perhaps the bravest thing that I had ever managed to do.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa… Don't I get to say something?" Jackson spoke up. I turned around, giving a slight nod of my head and looking up at him with wide eyes. "The reason that I went to Meredith's room that night was to tell her that it's over. Because… I'm in love with you, April Kepner. Only you."

It was as if my heart skipped a beat. I had always read that line in romance novels and always found it to be silly – how could someone's heart physically skip a beat just because of something like that? People's heart rates picked up, but that just seemed extreme. Yet I felt it now. That crazy little skip inside of my chest. That squeeze that made me want more, no matter how strange or weird it might have felt at first thought. A smile broke wide across my cheeks as I looked up at him, able to feel my cheeks lift up to my eyes completely. A huff of a laugh, half disbelief, and half amazement, breathed through my lips. It takes a moment to really process what he had said.

He was in love with me.

"You're what?" And I was in love with him, too. Wow. "Wait… How do we do this?" I blinked a few times as I stared up at him.

"What do you mean?" Jackson's head tilted curiously to the side as he looked down at me.

"What do you put into a contract for a real relationship?" I questioned, chewing at my lower lip.

"Nothing." A small huff of laughter escaped him and he smiled down at me so easily, beautiful seafoam eyes sparkling with absolute ease. "You gotta trust." Trust. Something that we both needed to work on, I was sure. I had jumped to my own conclusions foolishly and childishly, so scared of getting hurt. He had given me some reason, of course. But now that I knew the truth, that things were completely over between him and Meredith… That changed everything. "You gonna break my heart, April?" It was a teasing little question as he leaned down, kissing me softly on the lips.

"Not a chance," I whispered before kissing him back hard.

I'd always fantasized about falling in love with a field. But I just never thought it'd be the kind where you play football. Life never turned out the way that I had planned it to. Somehow, it just ended up better.

Like this. The summer between Jackson and I both graduated college at John Hopkins University with a BS in Biology, honors and all, and before we attended Harvard Medical school, we do get married. I don't walk down the aisle a virgin like my family would have expected, but my father hands me off to him with absolute joy and pride gleaming in my eyes, and Libby howls with absolute amusement and laughter when she catches the bouquet at my wedding. One part of my dreams and fantasies stays the same, though: it's still to the man that I love more than anything else in the world. Jackson looked perfect in a tuxedo with his beautiful, gleaming eyes as he smiled at me. When we kiss, the applause is wild and thunderous.

One part of my dream does come true. Two beautiful baby boys and a little baby sister for the both of them to look up out for. All three of them with their father's wonderful eyes and curly hair, even if their faces look a bit more like me. Getting pregnant during medical school isn't the plan, nor the second boy that comes during residency, but by the time that our daughter comes around, the two of us are complete pros at managing our busy careers and our family. Love is enough for us to make do.

Love was everything. It still is.


End file.
